Memory disease can accelerate if you eat antidepressants

Antidepressants may accelerate the deterioration of data processing skills in dementia, claims new research.

Information processing of dementia patients eating antidepressants is deteriorating faster than those who do not receive depression medication, the researchers of the Swedish Carolini Institute and the Gothenburg University Sahlgrenka Hospital were observed.

The findings published in BMC Medicine on Tuesday are particularly concerned with nerve mediator serotonin reuptake inhibitors, ie SSRIs and mirtazapine.

“The effects seemed to be stronger in patients with more serious dementia,” researchers write.

The stronger the doses of SSRIs were used by dementia patients, the stronger their cognitive, that is, the deterioration of data processing.

In addition, larger SSRIs were linked to an increased risk of more serious memory disease, total mortality and fractures.

Research However, it does not indicate that antidepressants really accelerate dementia.

The use of antidepressants in dementia and faster cognitive impairment are associated with each other, but the cause-and-effect relationship has not been proven.

The researchers themselves also point out that it is not known whether faster cognitive impairment is due to drugs or possibly depression themselves.

This is a registry survey in which researchers analyze data from 18,740 dementia patients from Sweden between 2007 and 2018. Patients were 78 years old and 23 % of them had antidepressants. About two thirds of antidepressants were SSRIs.

SSRIs There were also differences inside. In the case of Essitalopram, cognitive impairment was faster compared to certraline, while citalopram was associated with a slower impairment.

Sertralin and Essitalopram are in Swedish recommendations in the treatment of first -line depression and anxiety in older patients, researchers write.

SSRI drugs may have previously screen by retard The progress of mild cognitive impairment into Alzheimer’s disease.

However, antidepressants do not seem to work Equally well in dementia patients. Memory diseases often involve symptoms of depression.

Research is well done and the material is extensive, says Professor of Edinburgh, a British University and chairman of the British Neuroscience Association Tara Spires-Jones. He did not participate in the study.

“However, this type of data cannot prove that the use of antidepressants caused a faster deterioration,” Spires-Jones says Expert reporting on the Media Science Media Center.

“For those people who needed antidepressants, there may have been a more aggressive disease or depression in themselves may have influenced the progression of the disease.”

Bath University Assistant Professor Prasad nishtalan In the opinion of the results, it is worthwhile to interpret the results carefully. The study does not tell you how or why SSRI drugs could biologically accelerate cognitive impairment, he says on the SMC site.

In addition, antidepressants did not have the same connection to all types of dementia. In the forehead, the anti-traction drugs were linked to a slightly slower cognitive impairment, Spires-Jones points out.